SPOILER ALERT: Do not read any further if you haven't watched the third episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. We're launching this blog to coincide with US broadcast dates so there's a place all fans can discuss the show together. Sorry, UK viewers – if you're waiting for the show to air on BBC1, do come back here after Thursday's broadcast

Dead Of Night

This is the one where it all starts to kick off: nasty drug company Phicorp has got something shadowy to do with the miracle, a convicted paedophile is pushing forward Obama's US healthcare reforms and the scale of the conspiracy start to revealing itself. But on the frontline, our new foursome finally begin to resemble a team, doing some proper Torchwood sleuthing; bickering without a care in the world as they infiltrate the Phicorp conference with the camera-contact-lenses that old fans will remember.

Rex's injuries are giving him serious short-man-complex. Gwen, still oscillating wildly between Earth mother and gun-toting tough woman (and loving it), now also turns her hand to big-sistering the likeable but simpering Esther. And for all its oddity, Miracle Day is starting to feel properly excellent.

This episode was written by Jane Espenson, of Buffy fame – although I still haven't really forgiven her for writing the sappiest episodes of Battlestar's awkward final season, and let's not even go there with Caprica. But here Espenson skillfully meshes the twisted, the sentimental and the absurd as she brings out Torchwood's trademark switches in tone. More skillfully, perhaps, than John Barrowman himself, as Jack swerves from pissing contests with Rex to adventurous casual sex to gushy sentimentality to tortured war vet – all in 45 minutes.

That said, there was also Jack's face-off with Danes, and the unpleasant realisation of their symmetry in both having killed children. Already, Jack is looking close to obsessed – while Danes, recognising the power he has over Jack, lets the mask slip as his journey towards folk hero gathers pace. Are you hooked yet?

Scene stealing

Fast threatening Doctor Song as the most fabulous character in the Whoniverse, Jilly Kitzinger continues to amaze with her lipstick-slapping brand of goofy evil. Words cannot express how completely she steals every scene she's in, not least with her "these are the times that make men" speech, which very nearly overshadowed the whole episode. She's clearly going to get a lot worse, but then supporting deliciously amoral characters is just one of the awkward quandaries one as a Torchwood fans face on a day-to-day basis. Still not sure about Doctor Vera, though.

Transatlantic tension

Gas stations/petrol stations; crisps/chips; cashpoints/ATMs... yes, we understand that the purpose of these relentless exchanges between Gwen and Esther were to establish some banter between the new team, but it's as if no British and American people have ever spent any sustained period of time together. Is this going to go on all series? In that case: tomato/ tomato, let's call the whole thing off, etc.

Samesex watch

And after all the fuss over American intervention, it's the BBC which proved squeamish, editing a sex scene. This is what a source told The Sun: "It wasn't that it was a gay scene that worried people, but just the fact that it was such an explicit sex scene full stop. You can get away with scenes like that on American cable channels, but you can't on primetime BBC One."

And the beeb themselves confirmed: "The UK and US versions of Torchwood are slightly different. However, these differences do not change the story in any way and strong storylines are first and foremost to the series." Barrowman, however, would disagree.

Classified information

• Aside from the obligatory safe-sex reference, Jack's encounter with the barman does provide the most immortal exchange of the episode, as Rex complains about Jack stealing his painkillers: "Did you get impaled as well?" "You should've seen the other guy."

• A cute little "bigger on the inside" reference for Whovians does not go unnoticed round these parts.

• The return of the camera contact lenses made me pine for lovely Martha Jones.

• Yet for all of this: when do we get to see some aliens please?

• Finally, people, your theories as to where all this is going. From the next week teaser, we know Los Angeles, for a start...